Sundazed
Byredo (2019)

Citrus and suntan lotion, lightly applied with a dryer sheet. I wanna meet the guy who pays $4/ml for this: I got me a bridge to sell.

The opening blast in a refreshing citrus blast, mainly lemon, and the enhanced by mandarin and whiff of a rip orange.

Later on a slightly darkish-green jasmine appears, which is accompanied by a light-hearted neroli impression. The top noes are still lingering foe a while.

The base turns a bit sweeter owing to a lashing of white musks, which are a but nonspecific on me, and express a candy-like sugrainess at times.

I get moderate silage, very good projection, and an - respectable for a citrus-based creation - eight hours of longevity on my skin.

A nice summer scent, which a can be a bit generic towards the end, but is crafted well otherwise. released in 2019 by the Stockholm-based perfume house founded in 2006. 3/5

I definitely get the cotton candy sweetness, similar to the sweetness in BR 540 but these are not the same scents. This is more fruity floral and feminine. My wife made the comment that it smells like candy grape flavor, not actual grapes. I feel like it leans more towards a sugary, powdered orange. Either way, it's definitely a candy fruit scent mixed with powdery feminine florals. As with most scents, the intensity of all the sweet top notes calms down into the drydown becoming more and more pleasant and unisex.

Performance is good with all day longevity and decent projection during the first 3-4 hours.

Allow me to confess that I really enjoy my Neroli concoctions as well as musk concoctions, from clean to near debaucherous. As to the former this means I have really enjoyed much of Jean Claude Ellena's canon as much as the numerous Italian interpretations of citrus-infused wonders – both those that are uplifting and those that are more staid when I wear my gentleman pants – that seem to evoke walks along the Mediterranean between refreshments on hot days.

Regarding Byredo's Sundazed (2019), after reading the ingredient listing and partaking in a short experience at the Byredo counter I wondered if this would be tantamount to Jean-Claude Ellena having a sugar rush and falling into a coma?

Still intrigued I took some samples with me to try and figure this out.

Oh wow, upon application this one is immediately evocative. More accurately, it was memory-inducing from the opening but this was all quite inadvertent as I had not set out to imagine what this scent was. I was attempting to be pragmatic in noting this. From 0-60 upon application I was met with a loud cotton candy note (I want to say “cotton candy accord,” only because that sounds delightfully funny!). Memories came flooding back to me. From the knock-knock on my mind's door and thereupon opening it I see myself at a local fairground smelling the pungent sugary sweets and their steamy aromas that crept through the hot air and invaded the already excited children all around me. Wow, that is indeed cotton candy to start this journey. How is this not in the top notes? More to come, I am certain.

Within minutes the mandarin joins in and pushes this towards something more orange creamsical, though it never quite entirely goes there as something floral is detected in the background. I am already aghast as the super sweet opening has taken me out of my normal comfort zone, and I am a little confused by how my usual love of orange-led scents has been somewhat pillaged by the cotton candy. But of course we have the answer: this is mandarin, something that is intendedly prescribed here to maintain the sweetness content. Make no mistake, this is more sugar than ‘sweet' in the world of fragrance.

(Note: for reference sake this is called “candy floss” – where I come from we just call it cotton candy).

My initial reaction was suspect, for I feared we'd have no lift off. Instead I worried that Sundazed was just a sweet orange creamsical-inspired skirmish across the runway with the initial candied heat of orange usurping our attention until we sputter out and fail to take to the skies after all.

I am happy to report that I was wrong. Very wrong.

After the mandarin orange and cotton candy fireworks I can detect the lemon, although it was always sorta there. The dry lemon assumes a more nominal position and this, combined with a rising Jasmine note, tempers and then controls this blast of hot sugary air from Candy Mountain. When it comes the change in tempo is significant. With that in mind, I hope I haven't lost anyone yet with the overly descriptive but accurate sugary opening because change is afoot – stick around! For within 20-30 minutes the mandarin plunge is replaced by a perfectly balanced universe between a soapy neroli and jasmine. The opening mandarin and cotton candy carousel is slowed down and harnessed, thus succeeding in directing this fragrance onto a more harmonious plane of floral, bitter orange and a clean white musk. Despite a preview of the notes did not see that coming in the manner in which it played out.

The once seemingly impenetrable, hazy, ozonic cloud of cotton candy has now settled alongside or just below our heart and we are left with the observation that we are, in actuality, dealing with a well-thought out journey utilizing some high-quality ingredients. The neroli and jasmine are outstanding, and we are led back to a strong reminder that Byredo is a quality niche house. It seems they know what they are doing in conducting this voyage. This is floral, soapy neroli in a good way. The lush jasmine would seem to be captured just at that moment when the flowers fall (you know if you've had jasmine plants). And what makes this so intriguing is that I keep getting these continuous, though more diluted and gentle, wafts of cotton candy that appear amongst the bouquet. A clean, white musk holds this in place without making it too heavy. As a fan of many varieties of musk (clean, dirty, sensual, soapy, etc.) this one does not take over too soon and forces the other ingredients to settle down. By the 1-hour mark the mandarin is gone (or contained) because there really isn't room or reason for it at this point. By the 2-hour mark this has settled into a happy skin scent. Where once it was sharp, sweet and slightly bitter we move into a dry down that clean, warm and evidently flavoured by the mid-afternoon sun. No woods, not really earthy, possibly a little green with a slightly sweet breeze. Sundazed is really the definition of a non-linear experience.

I'm a little confused by this fragrance. But even more so I am intrigued. (1) On a personal level, going in I knew that this was slightly outside my usual charts that capture my attention, so I'm surprised. Did I just discover that I like a little more floral with my de facto love of neroli? Or perhaps I'm discovering that, in fact, what I'm witnessing is my own (admittedly new) curiosity about florals in general, particularly without woods to ease it? While I have certainly sampled floralist attributes in fragrances leaning that way I almost never appreciate them enough to request/accept a sample, much less make a full bottle acquisition. (2) On the other hand, I am a little confused due to the way this was described at the Byredo counter as it belies the fact that this is, in essence, a dominant floral-neroli-citrus composition. Yes, it's held aloft by a clean white musk and made more intriguing by natural (mandarin) and candied (cotton candy) sweet notes. But the Byredo consultants insisted on the primacy of the sweet accords. I'm not complaining because ultimately intrigue got the best of me and that is why I am here now. Where originally it felt as something composed for a young and upwardly mobile urbanite in some noted cultural industry to recapture memories on carefree Summer days, the reality is that the progression of Sundazed makes it all that plus an unexpectedly sophisticated experience.

For my skin sillage is average (about 3-4 hours) and projection is relatively low. It's a sweet, short projection (maybe 1-2 hours) and thus it might be best advised to spray it on your clothes also. It's worth it.

This is Summer. Not a Summer citrus with sel de mer along a natural coastline, not a fresh and raw vetiver while enjoying a spritzer on the piazza, and it's certainly not an ozonic aquatic of the virile XY chromosome set. This is a Summer scent reminding us of ice cream after swimming lessons at the pool. It's Summer braking for lemonade while our parents grabbed espressos on our vacation. It's a Summer of a sort of uplifting yet ethereal memory. But this is not a child's Summer (forgive my own references) as the evolution of Sundazed became something quite unexpected, very intriguing, inviting, highly- wearable, and, yes, sophisticated. Byredo's alignment with memory is an undeniable part of this experience.

This is an enjoyable, very happy scent. To those who heard it was sweet? – well, 80% of that rumour is just the initial cotton candy-mandarin opening. The more I think about it the more I believe this is an intelligent design that ensures that this unique sweetness settles down nicely into the mid-frame where it might otherwise disappear. It thus allows the cotton candy to hold a place just below what this fragrance really is . . . a delightful soapy floral-neroli experience that is light and highly-wearable for casual situations and (perhaps) work in warm weather. And yet there is something that is also pointedly sentimental about Sundazed; it truly evokes hot Summer afternoons and the immobile laziness of it all. It feels worry-free, light, uplifting and free from the humdrum aquatic and amped-up citrus interpretations we usually find for Summer. In fact, I might even say that Sundazed was less made for Summer as instead it was Summer that made Sundazed.

And that leads me to conclude that it was aptly named. That's my day in the sun.
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(UPDATE: I wore this for the entirety of the August long weekend, attending various social events and music parties. I carried an atomizer to reapply at various times throughout the day in all that sunshine, as well as evening refreshes. I adored being with this scent. And friends and strangers kept commenting on it, equally men and women. In fact, once early evening came I applied some on my friends and they were absolutely taken with the progression of notes much the same way they were with the music. So much so that a few stated they would be acquiring it for themselves, no matter the lofty cost. To be sure, it's seasonal time is limited - it's a Summer scent alluding to our past Summer glories in those hot days/evenings - but this one is a resounding success!!)